The Chevalier groaned, struck his brow with his fist, and muttered, ’That will concern no one—­that has been provided for.  Ah! ah! children, if I lose my own soul for you, you——­’

’Father, my sweet father, say not these cruel things.  Did not the Queen’s confessor tell us that all means were lawful that brought a soul to the Church? and here are two.’

’Two!  Why, the youth’s heresy is part of his point of honour.  Child, child, the two will be murdered in my very house, and the guilt will be on my soul.’

‘No, father!  We will—­we will save him.  See, only tell him this.’

‘This—­what?  My brain is confused.  I have thought long—­long.’

’Only this, father, dear father.  You shall not be tormented any more, if only you will tell him that my brother has made Eustacie his wife, then will I do all the rest.’

Diane coaxed, soothed, and encouraged her father by her caresses, till he mounted his mule to return to the castle at dinner-time, and she promised to come early in the afternoon to follow up the stroke he was to give.  She had never seen him falter before,—­he had followed out his policy with a clear head and unsparing hand,—­ but now that Berenger’s character was better known to him, and the crisis long delayed had come so suddenly before his eyes, his whole powers seemed to reel under the alternative.

The dinner-bell clanged as he arrived at the castle, and the prisoners were marched into the hall, both intent upon making their request on Osbert’s behalf, and therefore as impatient for the conclusion of the meal, and the absence of the servants, as was their host.  His hands trembled so much that Berenger was obliged to carve for him; he made the merest feint of eating; and now and then raised his hand to his head as if to bring back scattered ideas.

The last servant quitted the room, when Berenger perceived that the old man was hardly in a state to attend to his request, and yet the miserable frost-bitten state of poor Landry seemed to compel him to speak.

‘Sir,’ he began, ‘you could do me a great kindness.’

The Chevalier looked up at him with glassy eyes.

‘My son,’ he said, with an effort, ’I also had something to say.  Ah! let me think.  I have had enough.  Call my daughter,’ he added, feeling helplessly with his hands, so that Berenger started up in alarm, and received him in his arms just in time to prevent his sinking to the floor senseless.

‘It is a stroke,’ exclaimed Berenger.  ’Call, Phil!  Send the gendarmes.’

The gendarmes might be used to the sight of death of their own causing, but they had a horror of that which came by Nature’s hand.  The purple face and loud gasps of the stricken man terrified them out of their senses. ’C’est un coup,’ was the cry, and they went clattering off to the servants.  These, all men but one old crone, came in a mass to the door, looked in, beheld their master rigid